Most people have heard the saying that you can either look at a glass half full or half empty. Both statements are 100 percent true and both statements determine how you see life. I personally used to be a glass half empty kind of girl. The question “Why me?” was asked often in my head and I always questioned how people could be so positive all of the time. I would ask my mom why unfair things would happen and she would simply respond with the saying, “Because life’s not fair.”
This famous quote was not the only thing I was told growing up. I was also told that having a negative attitude would cause negative things to happen in my life. As a young child going into high school, this idea was not only laughable to me but annoyed me. My thought was that my negative attitude was coming from the events that were happening around me. While being negative to those events were reasonable reactions, I was unknowingly carrying that through the rest of my day and into the weeks. After many personal events occurred in my high school and early college days, I started changing my mindset. I stopped asking “Why me?” and started saying “Everything happens for a reason”.
An example that I think many of us can relate to would be traffic. There have been multiple times driving home from school where I found myself driving 40 on a 55 mph road or two semi trucks would decide to block both lanes of traffic. It would have been easy for me to ask why I had to be stuck behind slow drivers. During some of those drives home, however, I ended up cruising by at 40 mph on a 55 mph road next to an accident that had clearly just occurred. With this as a personal example that most everyone can relate to, it validates that things happen for a reason. Years ago, when I still thought everything bad happened to me and only me, I might not have even noticed a car accident on the side of the road. Now, with my new way of thinking, I am able to notice these things, pray for those involved with the car accident, and be thankful that I was not involved. This is potentially because things happen for a reason, slow drivers included.
Now, if you are someone who just can’t look at life that way, that’s okay. There are other ways to look at the glass half full. If you don’t want to accept that everything happens for a reason, I challenge you to look at the silver lining of every bad situation you experience. I started doing that, and I have been able to make more connections than I would have ever thought possible. When you look at your life in separate events, it’s so easy to ask why things happen to you and not others.
With that, if you look at your life as a continued story, those silver linings will connect a lot of things and make sense as to why things happen. Humans, by nature, want things to make sense. Finding the positive aspects of every situation can help the mind connect why a certain situation has happened in our lives. I know it’s easy to see the glass half full when the cup is overflowing, but just know that even in the darkest days there is a reason for all of it.
It doesn’t happen overnight, and just because you are a positive person doesn’t mean bad things won’t still happen. It just means that it is a little more bearable when those bad things occur. Understanding the good, even in the bad, can make anyone’s life a more enjoyable one. Everyone has their right to believe what they choose to believe, but from personal experience, positivity will go a lot farther in making yourself happy in the long run.